Digital

Jan 20, 2010, 05:19AM

Primates and the digital overload

"In comic books, when the hero was knocked out in a decent fight and was reviving, he would always ask, 'Where am I? Who are you?' The new correct answers are: Everywhere. Everyone. A world without end."

An endlessly interesting insight into primate behaviour was offered by the late Michael Chance of the University of Birmingham. He proposed that central to primate communities was their “attention structure.” Who looked at whom, from which animals did cues to action derive, whose sounds were listened to, whose touches were reassuring, whose eye contact and whose soft grunts made a difference – who, in effect, was political leader.